Grace for Today

two - types of confusion

TW: anxiety

Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.

That's a quote from War of the Foxes, a book yet unread by Claire, by Richard Siken, an author she'd never heard of until she saw the quote online.

It's true and in a painful way. For everything bad that's happened, someone had to leave first. Fathers leave their brides. Children leave their faith. Hitler left his sanity.

Yet for anything good to happen, someone has to leave first. Someone had to leave the anxiety to invent the impossible. Someone had to leave the pain to start a family. Someone had to leave the disbelief to find their faith. The world is funny like that.

But what happens when you want someone else to leave first?

Claire wasn't sure if she was more desperate for her friends to stop bugging her or for her own mind to stop picking fights with itself. She and Oliver got along perfectly, but she couldn't escape the nagging feeling that one day, as soon as she told her friends and their relationship became public knowledge, it would all switch off and she'd never hear from him again.

Today had been a great day between them, full of Office-style glances every time a student said something dumb and repressed giggles every time Mr. Harris struggled to operate his laptop. But her happiness over conversation couldn't help but be overshadowed by a deep fear that the next day, it would all come crashing down.

Finally home from school, Claire flopped down on her bed, letting out a deep sigh as she felt her bones sink into the supportive mattress beneath her. Just as she felt herself slowly drifting toward sleep, she was jolted up by her phone ringing quite loudly.

All annoyance floated away as she saw that it was Oliver calling her.

"Hey Oliver, what's up?" she chirped as she set the phone on the edge of her desk and grabbed her notebooks and textbooks out to begin the process of studying. Oliver usually called to study over the phone together- it seemed to help him concentrate easier or something, and it made it easier for her to help him with tricky questions- something he needed quite often.

"Oh, nothing much, just wanted to see you you're doing."

Claire frowned. He seemed less upbeat than he usually was, and it caused another tendril of worry to emerge in her mind.

"You seem down," she commented.

He sighed. "It's nothing. It's just... I don't know. Something seems off. I think it's the impending finals. I'm blessed to have such a great education, but it would be nice if we didn't have extremely rigorous tests at the end of the year."

"Hell can feel a lot like heaven," Claire mused, settling down into her desk chair.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's... oh, have you ever read The Screwtape Letters? By C.S. Lewis?"

"It's, uh, it's on my list."

Claire rolled her eyes. It's on my list was Oliver's infamous way of saying he hadn't read a book but was too embarrassed to admit it.

"Okay, so, in Screwtape- which is a collection of fictional letters written between a high-ranking demon and an entry-level tempter in Hell- it's a very insightful book but super weird to read- it explores all these themes and kinds of spiritual warfare, right? Because Wormwood- that's the entry-level guy- he's trying to stop this one guy from growing in his faith and all that. His uncle, Screwtape, is the high-ranking one, and Uncle Screwy is giving Little Wormy all kinds of advice. And that's all just background information, you know?